Shmuz #196

I’d Be the First to Thank HASHEM If …

The Chovos Ha’Levovos explains that one of the most powerful driving forces in our serving HASHEM should be a sense of appreciation. We should be filled with a powerful feeling that I am the recipient of much good, that I am constantly benefiting from all that HASHEM has bestowed upon me. The sense that I am constantly receiving should fill me with a recognition that nothing that I could do would ever repay what HASHEM has given me.

Yet often that isn’t the sense that we feel. It’s far more common to feel, “Of course I would be the first to thank HASHEM if there were anything to thank Him for—but my life stinks.”